Chapter 24: Singular for Plural

But in fact the opposite device, driving plurals together into singulars, is also sometimes most sublime in appearance. Demosthenes says:

Then the whole Peloponnesus stood apart.
And really, while Phrynichus put in his drama The
Capture of Miletus, the theatre burst into tears.

Compressing the number from what is divided to what is unified gives more the sense of a single body. 2. What is responsible for the ornamental effect I take to be the same in both: where the words are essentially singular, to pluralize them stirs the emotions contrary to expectation. But where the words are plural, making the plural come together into a sonorous unity is, because of the transformation of things into their opposite, contrary to calculation.

Commentary

sublime in appearance: this is the only time that Longin us uses the word-one word in Greek-and it appears to be the only use so far recorded in extant Greek literature. What the nuance and tone of the word may be are not definable.

Demosthenes says: the passage is from On the Crown (18.18). In this, as in the next example, much of the force is lost because we use the figure in everyday speech; to a Greek, to speak of a unit (“the Peloponnesus”) as “standing a­ part” would be striking.

Example of singulars for plurals can be found in English, as, for example, in Churchill’s use of “the German” or “the Nazi,” or Byron’s poem “The Des­ truction of Sennacherib”:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts are gleaming in purple and gold.

And…tears: Herodotus 6.21.

compressing the number: the argument rests on the metaphysical point made in ch. 10: the “stuff” used by the artist is itself an organic whole, some pans of which “stick out” as high points to be taken up; these are “selected” and then “synthesized” into “one body.” Because the device of making plurals into singu­ lars resembles this process, Longinus seems to prefer it, for he uses no such ambiguous language here as he does of the inverse technique (see ch. 23 . on courts our good opinion. . .crowd of numbers).

stirs the emotions contrary to expectation: the text is either highly com­ pressed here or corrupt, or both. The ms. reading for the word translated “stirs the emotions” makes no sense. The phrase “contrary to expectation” may go with it, i.e., “is a mark of unexpected emotion” (Russell). But why it should be contrary to expectation is not clear. Perhaps the point is that since Caecilius did not discuss emotion, he would not have given the device credit for producing emotional effects.